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Gral, the Shark Additional Information

Gral, the Shark Card Review

That’s a pretty interesting and unique effect. On Battlecry, you eat a random minion from your deck and you get it back with Deathrattle. So the best case scenario is eating a big minion, getting a huge body for 5 mana and then drawing a card when it dies. But how big exactly the minion has to be for this card to see play? Azure Drake should be a good point of comparison – it was a great card commonly used in Rogue, and it drew a card for 5 mana while leaving a body. Despite being only 4/4, he had some advantages – extra +1 Spell Damage and a guaranteed draw, which happened on Battlecry not on Deathrattle. So I’d say that 5/5 is too weak given that it doesn’t give you Spell Damage and draw (as well as stats) can be Silenced + it’s delayed (the difference between Battlecry and Deathrattle draw can be huge, especially in top deck scenario). 6/6 is probably the bare minimum for this kind of effect, with 7/7 starting to look solid. So you need to eat at least a 4/4 or 5/5 minion (or something similar, like 3/5, 5/4 etc.) for it to make sense.

And that’s actually a big reason why this card even if it sees play, will see play only in a very specific deck, something like “Big Rogue”. Because realistically, you would never want to put it in Odd version, with LOTS of smaller bodies (1/2, 2/1, 2/2 etc.). Even the Tempo and Miracle versions run a lot of small minions, such as Fire Fly, SI:7 Agent or Edwin VanCleef (remember that it’s 2/2 at the base level), so that’s also not good.

Additional use I can see is to “tutor” a certain minion. Let’s say that you play Malygos Rogue, with only a few minions, including Malygos and Kobold Illusionist. Getting Malygos, for example, would be quite insane – 6/14 minion immediately that draws Malygos on Death. The problem here is that if Gral gets silenced or transformed, the eaten minion is just gone. Forever. You can’t get it back, potentially ruining your entire win condition, so I wouldn’t necessarily want to put it into a combo deck.

And finally, you could sort of run a cheese deck, where you only play insanely big minions, such as The Darkness. Now, you drop this on T5 and have a 22/22 minion. If your opponent has no Silence or removal, you win the game. However, basing your entire strategy around this seems foolish. It’s a bit similar to the Spell Hunter with Barnes + Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound, but the Hunter build had a good base to play only spells. Rogue doesn’t – the class is spell-heavy, but it still needs minions to win most of the time (Hunter could summon minions with spells, Rogue can’t).

And again, this is Rastakhan’s Rumble theme. This is a card with very high potential in a specific deck, but such deck doesn’t exist or isn’t good right now and it doesn’t look like it might never be good. If you for some reason play Rogue build without any small minions, where the lowest stats on your minions are 4/4 or something like that, then yeah, by all means, go ahead and play Gral, the Shark. But if that’s not the case, I don’t think that he’s good enough.

Card rating: 8/10 in a specific deck that doesn’t exist (“Big Rogue”), but 2/10 outside of it

1. Best case scenario: Eats Malygos, you get a 6/14 for 5 mana and draw Malygos.

2. Worst case scenario: You play a 5 mana 2/2 in a deck where you CONSTANTLY have turns where you play very little or nothing at all, so even a 5 mana 2/2 is better than nothing.

3. It eats one of your other minions (Kobold Illusionist or Elven Minstrel): Not as good as option 1, but still good nonetheless as you get SOME board presence (which like I said, is pretty rare in this deck) and on top of that you get that oh-so-useful card draw.

After using it many times, I think it’s a great addition to Malygos Rogue – you get an extra minion and board presence without messing up your Minstrel’s combo.

Yeah that’s the set up I use, I cut out one of my Necrium Blades but I think you’re right and I’m going to replace one of the Roll the Bones instead. 2x Necrium Blade is just too important for when they have a “Destroy your opponent’s weapon” card. Either that or maybe cut one of the Evasions? I’m not sure, I’ll keep testing

One day, Ragnaros firelord was on a ship deck(in deck). Suddenly, a shark appears (play Gral, the shark from hand), it attack the ship and eat up ragnaros. As this shark doesnt chew, ragnaros went into the shark’s stomach and Gral absorbed ragnaros stat, Gral, the shark become Gral, the fire shark.

When shark is killed, ragnaros can come of the shark stomach.

When the shark is silenced, the shark can’t make a sound. Most likely due to month being shut. Since this shark is special, the only airway to the stomach is only from the month. And since the month is being shut, no oxygen will go to the stomach. As fire and living things will need oxygen to keep on going. Any living things or fire will just die in the shark stomach due to the lack of oxygen.

It makes a much worse tutor than elven minstrel
And you’re not going to make big rogue just because of this
So it’s just a 5mana 5/5 with some variance and deathrattle: draw a minion, which is fairly boring for the legendary Loa :/

Can Rogue like….not get constant shitty ass legendary’s? And if we do, can they at least have good stats and be playable???? Like i main rogue and love em to death, but like we keep getting garbage cards while druid and warlock STILL getting sucked off. Seriously, If the Rogue champion is bad the move to Wild will be swift, at least there we can have a rogue deck with good rogue cards in it, and not have half or more nuetral cards in the deck. At this point it’s just us playing a nuetral deck with rogue support xD.

Gral looks like it’ll be the most awkward of the Loa to use in that you would want to play it with the Spirit on the board, yet at the same time, it will be the most independent of their spirit card (Outside of maybe Mage’s).

It wants you to play big minions, but Rogue hasn’t been the class for big minions as of late. The draw effect is useful, but it is slow. When played with the Spirit, it can easily become a massive threat, but so can Edwin.

The biggest question with this card will be “Is this better for Rogue than Edwin?” From what there is now, I don’t think it will.

Terrible card. It “Draws” a specific card that you don’t get to choose, and only if it doesn’t get silenced, and even if it ate a boulderfist ogre or a deathwing, silencing it would make it a 2/2 and vanilla minions tend to be weaker than cards you’d actually want to draw. If this card is ever good then it’ll draw in a silence meta and then it’ll drop off.

If this works like Brann > Void Terror (couldn’t for the life of me think of the name), the battlecry procs twice on the same minion. If not, hits two different minions, which could be iffy if you’re primarily playing one big minion you want to get the roll on.

I can see people having fun with Shark Spirit in a deck which runs Witchwood Piper and big minions. Maybe. Idk.

Outside of that, think of it like a silenceable card tutor (like Polluted Hoarder combined with half an Elven Minstrel).

Do I think it’s good? Probably not. Rogues generally don’t benefit as much from big minions, and the one deck that DOES (Big Rogue in Wild) simply doesn’t want to run this card due to consistency of the other pieces of the deck.

BUT has really negative synergy with the existing deathrattle rogue set up, as most good deathrattles are small bodies that trigger bigger ones. So are you going to have a big deathrattle deck where this is your only target? Not sure how much additional support this will get with the pirate package either.

Big Deathrattle Rogue is a thing in Wild, and I toyed with it in Standard. The deck runs Dollmaster Dorian, the Kobold that creates 1/1s from your hand, and Umbra. I think this would fit right in. In general, though, this is super, super weak to silence and transform effects. Not only you use your (hopefully) huge minion, you also lose the minion you ate.

This challenges you to build a Rogue deck with high-statted vanilla minions, which is not something she traditionally wants to do – it doesn’t immediately disqualify this card, but does raise a skeptic’s eyebrow. You’re gonna want to nom something at least 4/4, but given that it’s a deck buildaround you’re realistically gonna want much better than that. Rogue now has the tools to trigger its deathrattle, but that’s not terribly important? Do you REALLY care whether you draw the card or burn it? I guess you could come up with some shenanigans where you “clone” cards by milking the deathrattle, but that seems .. just not very good.

You can also try to combo this with Spirit of the Shark to make a massive pile of stats, but it’s just begging for a silence/removal.

After writing all this out, my vibe is that Rogue has much better things to do than stuff a deck full of cheap removals + Bittertide Hydras + Damaged Stegotrons. I’m not sure what they can print to synergize with it, either.

Thank you! There are a good number of opportunities to trigger this the same turn you play it while leaving it in play. This is the staple of the deathrattle rogue game plan right now. That blade, the necrium vial. It’s added draw, added stats and a silence burner. Everyone cries when cards with text are printed that silence will rule the game, how many viable silences can you run in a deck before your deck is garbage? The more targets you have to silence the more opportunity you have of your big minions escaping those silence effects. Bring on your silence!

I think it’s actually not terrible in rogue. On turn five, to justify playing it it would need to eat probably at least a 4/4, but rogue likes 4/4s, so that’s not bad. And then it’s deathrattle is draw a card. If put into a deck that isn’t chalk full of weak minions, this card could average being a 5 mana 6/6 that draws a card on deathrattle, which is realllly good. It’s hard to tell what decks will be seeing play though.

When you combine this with The Spirit of The Shark does it eat the same minion twice? Or does it eat two different minions? If it eats two different minions does the deathrattle add both of them to your hand?

The way void terror and brann bronzebeard worked was it ate the minions once and gained the stats twice. Same with the blade of C’Thun and Brann. So it would eat the minion once (or twice but it’s the same card you’re not losing two cards), gain double stats, and it’s deathrattle would only give you the minion it ate. Or that’s how old mechanics worked, hearthstone tends to have inconsistencies.

The first thing I thought of was a deck that doesn’t run many minions, like a big rogue… This might be the only synergy in that though, so probably not. Rogue does have a ton of spell support though, so you never know.

Then I thought of something REALLY weird. Malygos rogue. You could tutor this with minstrels, and eat malygos for an insane five drop, which would then tutor him into your hand. Seems inconsistent, but I would totally run this in malygos rogue for the high rolls and tutor effect.

Finally, this card has awesome synergy with its spirit. It creates a very powerful five mana minion, and then delayed draws two cards. Probably not worth it for the tempo, but you never know what the meta is like.

The power of this cards effect is high, and though no architype seems like it would really want it right now, a card of this power will probably find a place to be run. If not viable, then a lot of fun.

Unfortunately yes. I guess you could shuffle minions back into your deck? At this point it’s sohnding a little too far from the actual combo, but maybe malygos is wrong. What about big rogue with lich king and other big bois, and then shuffle effects and shark? 5 mana 10/10 draw a card, and you can shuffle big cards back in your deck. Idk, I just feel like there is some way to make this card work.